Give Live Sync a break

We live in a world where it is not very fashionable to love a Microsoft product … but I need to give credit where due: Microsoft Live Sync kicks ass, and wins over Dropbox by a landslide.

Live Sync and Drop Box are free file sharing & syncing applications. You do this by creating a folder within your computer, putting files in it, and then inviting people would like to have a copy of that folder in their own computers. And it gets better: Any changes made in that folder (by you or by those people you have invited) are automatically replicated on all computers.

But wait — there’s more!

Imagine if you’re using multiple computers with different platforms (Windows, OSX, etc.) in different locations. You can actually sync your files, bookmarks, and emails. In all your machines. In real time.

Dropbox is a newbie on the block, but quickly gained fanfare from those who’ve never heard of an older but silent contender, FolderShare (the precursor of Live Sync). Or maybe FolderShare/Live Sync was consciously ignored. After all, we live in a world where Steve Jobs can do no wrong, where Linux is uber cool, and everything else in Microsoft.

When Microsoft re-christened FolderShare as Live Sync last December 2008, it defied all expectations and launched an even superior product: It increased syncing of up to 20 main folders, with each folder having a maximum limit of 20,000 files. There are no file size limit on an account. However, a single file cannot be greater than 2GB, so forget using it to back up your DVDs.

Dropbox, on the other hand, only allows 2GB of space per account. And in my book, that sucks. Big time.